Chapter 2: Thursday

Elaine woke late from a restless sleep knowing that her dreams had been about him. She took a cold shower, which only served to irritate her even more, then carefully braided and twisted her hair into a tight bun. She dressed in her least flattering suit in hopes of dampening her ardor. She grabbed a cup of coffee in the Teacher's lounge on the way to her first class.

Most of the students had beaten her there--which was a first for her--and as she entered the room, none of them noticed her. They were all focused on the blackboard and the drawing of a pool table. Thomas stood in the middle of the bunch animatedly explaining how understanding geometry had made him a better pool shooter. He was so completely engrossed with the students that he did not see her. But she saw that gleam in his eye and knew this was real. He was not just trying to get close to her--he really was a math teacher. Which sounded paranoid. Then, her heart was racing again; he looked like a god, he taught math, and he wanted her. He would be perfect if there were not a question of breached ethics hanging over her head. 'I can't do this' she thought 'I can't stand next to him.' She took a deep breath, trying to get a hold of her nerves.

"I'm so glad," She said in as firm a voice as she could muster, "that our new Mr. Williams has found a practical use for math that you all can appreciate." Agreements to that murmured through the group. There were a few chuckles as the bell--thankfully--rang and the class moved quickly to their seats.

Only Thomas refused to look at her. "I'm sure Ms. Beaugoud is ready to start class now," his voice was flat having lost all of the charm it had only moments before, "I'll finish this another time."

Elaine waited until most of the students had taken their seats to approach her desk. Thomas busied himself erasing the blackboard. She could feel him behind her; a warm presence. Being this close to him made her nerves flutter. Her heart rate was suddenly aerobic. She took another couple of deep breaths, grateful when he moved to take a seat in the class. There was a bit of a titter and she peeked in his direction. Instead of taking the empty seat in front of the window, he was sitting on the windowsill.

She had to stifle a smile, "There is a desk in front of you, Mr. Williams."

"I'm quite comfortable here, Ms. Beaugoud," he replied in that baritone. "Unless you'd rather I sit closer to you."

Elaine felt her face flush, "You're fine where you are, Mr. Williams," she said far too quickly. She steadied herself and in a more normal voice continued, "Good morning ladies and gentlemen, I gather most of you have met Mr. Williams. He'll be taking over this class and a few others as of Monday." She was gratified that several students asked why, "I'm not going anywhere--but someone has to do the paperwork. I'll still teach all of the Advance Placements and we're adding two more sections, so you all will see plenty of me for a while longer. In the meantime, let's make Mr. Williams feel welcome, shall we?"

Thomas smiled and waved at the class and Elaine had the insane urge to pull him down and screw him on the classroom floor.

'Get a grip.' She chided herself repeatedly, 'This is crazy!'

She tried to focus, "Ok, let's get started with the homework. Mr. Maier, will you let Mr. Williams follow along with you, please."

It was easy after that. For the next hour, Elaine was able to keep occupied with the business of teaching and Thomas stayed quiet. She was giving the homework assignment when the bell rang again. Two students with questions about the material spared her speaking to Thomas. The next set of students flooded in before the last set finished leaving. The next three classes passed in roughly the same way, keeping Elaine's mind largely off Thomas' presence. When the lunch bell rang, she was appalled; the last group of students rushed out and no one flooded in.

She refused to look at him. Instead, she began ordering her desk. Again.

"You missed dinner." He finally said in that velvet tone of his. It made her think about candlelight, satin sheets and Teddy Pendergrass. When she did not reply he continued, "I met everyone, I think. Frank, Rachel, Dan--of course--and Anya is it? Yes, Anya. Gail was there, which was nice; she made most of the introductions." She could hear him moving but did not dare to turn around and risk another kiss. "They tell me it was a day of 'firsts'. My first day, your first time being late for a meeting, your first time missing a staff dinner, the first time anyone's seen your hair out."

Whatever reservations Elaine had were quickly melting away under the fire of that voice. She closed her eyes and prayed that he would not touch her even while desperately hoping that he would. She could feel him moving behind her. His hands were soft and warm where they caressed her neck. She had to bite her lip to keep from groaning aloud. His voice was just as soft and warm when he whispered in her ear, "I remember seeing your hair out."

She shivered and said nothing, did nothing while he uncoiled then un-braided her hair. It fell in soft waves around her face and shoulders. He combed his fingers through it. Elaine thought she might orgasm from that alone if he did it again. She was 'saved' by the intercom. Again.

Her hands were shaking as she opened her desk drawer and she had to try twice before her voice was audible, "Yes?"

"Where you at?"

Yvonne. Elaine silently swore, "My classroom. Why?"

"Are you with a student?"

"No." She cursed Yvonne again.

"Are you on your way?"

Exasperated, Elaine nearly snapped into the handset. She bit back her first response and instead asked, "I'm in conference at the moment, what do you need?"

"I need you to join Gail and me in the office. You promised to finish updating your mid term grades today? Or did you forget?"

Elaine swore audibly this time. That would be her entire lunch hour spent in the office instead of here. With him. He was still stroking her hair. "Right." She snapped, no longer attempting to hide her frustration, "On my way." This was probably a good thing.

She was very aware that every time he touched her, something interrupted them. It seemed a very large clue that it was wrong--very, very wrong--to allow this to proceed any further. So why did it feel so right? She let the handset fall back into the desk drawer. "I have to go." She forced herself to say.

He did not move away. He was not holding her; he was just standing tantalizingly close. She searched for a moment to find her grade book. It was in its proper place but she was too rattled to think straight. She squeezed past him, feeling his body firm against hers. It felt so good she wanted to weep. She was almost out of the door when he finally spoke.

"We have to talk, Elaine. We..." he paused and sighed, "I can't keep doing this. How about dinner tonight?"

She shook her head, "Too public. And tomorrow night as well. We'd have to go off campus Saturday to get any real privacy."

"Ok!" He jumped at the idea she had not actually meant to suggest, "Saturday. I'll take you someplace nice--quiet. Just talk and dinner, no pressure. Ok?"

"Thomas..."

"Curtis." He cut in, "If we're ever going to move past the past, we have to be 'Elaine' and 'Curtis'" he released that devastating grin again "not 'Thomas' and 'Ms. Beaugoud'"

He had a point; about the names and about dinner. That gave her two days to exorcise her personal demons and think rationally. "Dinner. Only. Saturday." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, "Ok." She left quickly before he could talk her into anything else.

In the office, Gail and Yvonne were eating at Gail's desk. The computer had been turned around so that Elaine could join them and type at the same time. They stared at her as she walked in and sat down. Gail's greeting was friendly enough and if Yvonne had shared any of last night's conversation, Gail was being unusually discrete. They ate quietly while Elaine entered her data.

Finally, Gail burst, "I can't take it! Who is he?" she stared at Elaine.

Elaine looked at Yvonne, who shrugged, and then back at Gail, "Who is who?"

"Who's your mystery guy? Come on! You're late for a meeting for the first time ever, when you get there, your hair's a wreck, then you skip out altogether on Curt's welcome dinner, and now the sexy new hairdo." She looked down right smug. "So, who is he?"

Elaine looked back at the computer screen, "How was dinner?"

"Dinner was great. The food sucked but Curt is a blast."

Elaine started to say something to Gail but saw Yvonne waiting for the jealous comment to fly. She pursed her lips and went back to the computer.

Yvonne apparently was enjoying her discomfort, "Oh yeah," she fairly purred, "He's a fox. I'll bet he'll keep you warm on a cold night."

Gail sighed, "Not last night." She giggled, "But I'm working on him."

Yvonne saw Elaine's glare even if Gail did not, "So you've got first dibs, huh?"

"Second, actually." She took another bite of salad," He has some old girl he can't shake loose. He said he wants to 'make it work.'" She made a quotation mark gesture, "But you know how it is, once you're on-campus it's hard to keep an off-campus romance going."

"Old?" Yvonne was actually having trouble keeping a straight face, "What, you mean 'previous' or 'elderly'?"

Elaine banged the keyboard harder than she meant to. It slipped off the edge of the desk and she had to collect it and her grade book from the floor.

"Careful. You ok, Honey?" Yvonne might have looked concerned if Elaine had not wanted to smack her soundly right then.

"I'm fine." She snapped back, "Thank you."

"So, Curtis likes old chicks." Yvonne was enjoying this entirely too much.

Gail laughed, "No, I meant prior well, technically, current girlfriend who I just want to be prior."

"Oh." Yvonne loudly smacked her soda and smiled at Elaine, "Sounds like Gail had a time last night. So what did you do?"

Elaine did not even look up, "I wasn't feeling well. I went to bed early."

"We wondered where you were." Gail finished her lunch and disposed of the trappings, "So were you sober and alone?"

"Yes."

"Are you going to tell us what happened or not?"

"Nothing happened!" Elaine snapped it out so sharply that Yvonne practically choked on her laughter.

Gail looked from one to the next, "What? What? Tell me!"

Elaine could feel her cheeks burning as she stared at the computer. Yvonne calmed down a bit and smirked, "Guess who has first dibs?"

"On Curt?" Gail squealed, "Who?"

Yvonne laughed some more.

"Who? You?"

"Oh no." Yvonne put up her hands in protest, "Try again."

"Who then?"

The two of them sounded like a pair of twelve-year-olds and Elaine said so.

"Oh my God!" Gail squealed again, "Elaine! You? You're the--and I'm quoting again here--'the only thing that gave my life meaning'?"

Yvonne sputtered, "He said that?"

"He said that. He spouted poetry. He would have broken into song but I had to draw the line somewhere."

Elaine was so embarrassed, she wished that she could curl up and die. Gail went on, embellishing Elaine was sure, to describe how after dinner, she and 'Curt' had taken a walk around campus. He had been very secretive about the woman's name and vague about how they met but had gone on at length about her virtues. Elaine was by turns mortified by the attention and concerned by how much he seemed to know about her. Yvonne seemed to revel in every revealing moment.

Elaine was genuinely relieved when the bell rang and she could gracefully escape her friends. After the fifth random comment in the hallway, she did stop in the nearest restroom to loosely re-braid her hair. She arrived in her classroom before the students and searched her desk quickly to find enough pins to put in back into place. Curtis arrived before she finished and she glared at him, "I just had a very long chat with Gail."

"Oh?" He voice was casual but she noticed he stayed at the door and did not venture within arms reach.

"Yes." She stood up, "Now look, I don't know what you think..." she stopped abruptly as students began arriving.

Curtis grinned again as he approached her desk, "I told Ms. Clark some things, personal things, that seemed appropriate to the moment." When he was close enough, he leaned over and whispered in her ear, "And I can't tell you how fetching your hair is like that."

His warm breath in her ear made her shiver. But he moved back to his windowsill without further enticements. It took her longer than usual to focus and start class; it was most of the afternoon before she could go more than ten minutes without hearing the word 'fetching' replayed in her mind or wondering why he used it in particular.

Near the end of her last class, she glanced at him. He was grinning at her again.

She could not take it.

"Mr. Williams," she used her stern, no-bullshit voice, "Is there something amusing going on that you'd like to share with the class?"

He actually grinned wider, "I can honestly say no, Ms. Beaugoud."

"Is there something, then, that you would like to share with your classmates?"

His eyebrow arched, a note of offence, perhaps. "Classmates?"

"I remind you that you are not teaching this class," she paused, "yet."

"Ah." The grin faded while he pondered that. Then, infuriatingly, it broke free again, "I would like to say to my classmates," he turned slightly to face them, "that I hope to be as good a teacher as Ms. Beaugoud who is excellent." he glanced back at her then continued, "But, confidentially, I hate grading homework so I give way less that she does."

There was the expected amount of cheering and laughter at this news and Elaine threw up her hands knowing that any useful teaching was done for the day. When the bell rang a minute or so later, half the students gathered around Curtis instead of rushing off. Elaine was glad--it gave her sometime to start grading the tests she had forgotten without thinking about him.

It was not long enough; she was only on her fifth paper when she realized that the chatter had ceased. She looked up and was surprised to see him looking back--not grinning--from a desk in the second row.

"My assigned seat." He confessed with a self-conscious laugh. When it passed, his face was still.

'Artists must love that face, ' she thought. 'And photographers.' Each detail seemed to highlight the strength of the next.

He swallowed hard as if for once she had affected him, "I had forgotten," he said softly, "how good you are."

She watched him, waiting to hear what was next.

"I mean, I watched them all day and you can see it. You can see the moment when these dry, pointless, complicated theories suddenly make sense to them. And then they're engaged and they want to learn. And you make it happen."

Elaine nodded; this was not something that a stack of teaching awards had not already told her.

"I just wanted you to know. I don't just love you, I respect you. As an educator, I'm in awe of you." He stopped and stayed silent.

"You have a crush, Thomas." It would be simpler if these feeling would just fade away, "You have a crush on who you remember me being. I'm not that person anymore. Trust me, go out with a few people, stop being so--so obsessed with me, ok?" she was not sure who was guilty of obsession but she was not going to tell him that.

He smirked, "Elaine, I'm not a child. Don't think I can't tell the difference between love and lust or that you've been the only one in my life. I wasn't a virgin when I met you and I didn't live like one because you weren't around."

That cut a little close to home and Elaine looked back down at the papers in front of her.

"I'm here to plead my case, so to speak," he said after the silence became awkward, "You're right; I don't know you now. And I want to; I want to get to know you now as an adult when you are free to really be with me. So far, I gotta tell you, my feelings haven't changed. And I didn't arrive expecting you to jump into my arms." He paused, "I did hope you'd know me."

"I never had a 6'2" bearded child named 'Curtis' in my class." Her heart was pounding again, "You caught me off guard."

"I could see that." He stood up, "The truth is, Elaine, I do want you. I mean, my teenage fantasies are all running rampant through my mind but I can wait. My feelings for you are more than just lust." He headed for the door, "I'll see you tonight."

He stopped and looked back at her, "Would you wear your hair out for me? Just that? I won't ask for anything else."

He left while she was still contemplating a response. His presence made her light headed and warm. She realized that she was shaking and knew that she would not be grading any more tests today. She grabbed the cup she kept on her desk and stood up.

She recognized the feeling of her blood pressure dropping but could not understand why it did so.

The ammonia was too strong and Elaine tried to pull away from it. Someone was speaking and it took a moment to recognize the language and a moment more to realize that she should respond. She tried to speak but knew something was wrong when it sounded like gibberish.

Yvonne was holding the ammonia caplet, looking over her shoulder at someone else, "She's awake, Steve."

The school nurse appeared in Elaine's field of vision, "Hey, just relax." He said in the overly calm manner of a pediatric nurse "What's your name?"

It was the last question she expected but it did help clear a little of the fog, "Elaine. What's going on here?"

"Good, good, Elaine. It's ok. You just seemed to have bumped your head." He ran his fingers over her head, "Tell me if anything h..."

Elaine's loud ouch answered the question before he could finish it, "Ok, yeah, that's a good size bruise. Ok, Elaine, I'm going to ask you a couple of easy questions, ok? Then we'll just run down to the Health Center, how's that?"

"Forty, Steve, not fourteen. Ok?"

He chuckled, "Right, sorry. Forget sometimes."

The questions were pretty standard: how many fingers, follow the light, can you stand. With Yvonne's help she could but was still a bit unsteady. She protested but they took her to the infirmary regardless.

"I'd like you to hang out for an hour or so." Steve said after he finished taking her blood pressure and temperature. "Just to watch for concussion, is all. I think you must have hit your desk on the way down because that's a hellova bruise on the back of your head. No more tight braids until that heals, ok?"

"Ok." Yvonne answered for her.

"What are you, my mother?"

"Sorry, but when I walked in, you looked dead." Yvonne shrugged, "I got a little freaked for a second."

In intercom beeped and Yvonne pulled a handset out of her pocket, "Yeah?"

"Where is she?" Gail's voice came back.

"Infirmary."

"Thanks."

They were silent for a few minutes. Elaine's head began a dull throb that promised nothing good. She thought about how she would have reacted if positions were reversed. "Hey" she said as loudly as her head could stand, "Thanks."

Yvonne waved it off, "Whatever." Her voice still had an edge of concern. "Look, I'm going to go ahead and let you rest, right? Do you want... ?"

They both jumped when the Health Center's main door slammed hard enough to rattle the infirmary's windows. They could hear Steve's indignant shout then the infirmary door burst open and Curtis paused long enough to find Elaine before bee lining for her bedside. The tentative throbbing in Elaine's head moved up to constant as Gail and Steve followed with poor Steve having a fit.

Curtis ignored them all; he gathered Elaine's hands in his own, "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." She tried to take her hands back but he held them firmly, "What did you do, try to break the doors in?"